A multi-carriage printing device employs a plurality of carriages that respectively print to different portions of a print medium, e.g., paper. In this regard, each carriage has at least one print head that transfers ink onto the print medium. Oftentimes, these carriages are mounted on control bars, and each carriage moves along its respective control bar for positioning before printing. The control bars are usually coupled to and held by a pair of support members mounted on a frame of the printer.
Typically, the multiple carriages are positioned such that during printing of an image to the medium, the carriages do not have to move along the control bar. Instead, the medium on which the image is to be printed moves via, for example, a rotating drum, underneath the carriages. Thus, as the paper moves under the carriages, the print heads transfer ink onto the medium to form a desired image.
As described hereinabove, the carriages are held by a pair of support members, and such members are often made up of a material that expands and/or contracts when the temperatures in which they operate increases and/or decreases, respectively. Furthermore, the expansion and/or contraction experienced by the members are not consistent. Therefore, because the carriages are mounted on control bars that attach to the support members, when the support members expand and/or contract, such expansion and/or contraction causes the carriages to misalign. When the carriages misalign due to the expansion and/or contraction of the support members, the portion of the desired image printed by one of the carriages may not continue to be aligned with the portion of the desired image printed by the other carriage. Such misalignment affects the print quality (PQ) of the desired image.